This invention relates to an elastically stretchable composite sheet containing hydrophilic material.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 1994-184897A and Japanese Patent Application (PCT) Publication No. 1996-504693 describe an elastically stretchable composite sheet comprising an elastic sheet having stretchability and a sheet-like fibrous assembly having inelastic stretchability bonded together. The presence of the fibrous assembly enables such a composite sheet to offer a flexible touch desired for a topsheet in a wearing article such as a disposable diaper or a sanitary napkin.
The composite sheet of prior art advantageously eliminates a rubber touch possibly experienced by a wearer as the elastic sheet comes in contact with the wearer""s skin and offers a cloth-like touch. However, the fibrous assembly constituting the composite sheet is formed, for example, with long fibers obtained through the melt spinning process or by microfibers obtained through the melt blown process. The composite sheet of prior art is disadvantageous in that these fibers are not sweat-absorbent.
It is an object of this invention to provide an elastically stretchable composite sheet with cloth-like touch and sweat-absorbability and thereby to improve feeling to wear a wearing article using this composite sheet.
According to this invention, there is provided an elastically stretchable composite sheet having a X- and Y-directions orthogonal to each other and comprising a first sheet adapted to be elastically stretchable at least in the Y-direction and a second sheet formed with fibrous assembly adapted to be inelastically stretchable in the Y-direction and bonded to at least one surface of the first sheet.
The improvement according to this invention is in that the first and second sheets are bonded together in bonding zones arranged intermittently in the Y-direction wherein each section of the fiber forming the second sheet extending between each pair of the adjacent bonding zones is longer than a straight distance between the pair of the adjacent bonding zones and at least one of the first and second sheets contains hydrophilic material.